Gardaí criticised over 10-year delay in search for baby

THE failure of gardaí to act for 10 years on information regarding the possible location of a dead baby was yesterday described as “incomprehensible”.

Former Fine Gael TD and solicitor Alan Shatter, who was a legal adviser to the woman who claims to be mother of the baby in question, said she had been “very badly served” by the State.

Gardaí began excavating the back garden of her childhood home in Dalkey, Co Dublin, on Monday.

The woman claims that around 1976, when she was 14, she gave birth to a stillborn baby and that it was buried in the back garden.

Gardaí yesterday confirmed that she gave them this information in 1995, but that no dig took place following expert advice.

The woman also told gardaí in 1995 that she was the 11-year-old mother of a murdered baby found on a back lane in Dún Laoghaire, Co Dublin, in April 1973.

She claims the baby was stabbed to death by another person and that both babies were the result of sexual abuse.

A detailed garda investigation into the alleged sexual abuse and the murder was sent in August 1995 to the DPP, who ruled against prosecution.

Mr Shatter said he couldn’t understand why it had taken 10 years for the dig at Dalkey to take place.

“There is no reason why the dig that is now happening shouldn’t have happened 10 years ago. I find that incomprehensible.”

A garda spokesman said: “The technical advice given to us in respect of the possibility of finding anything on a dig some 20 years after an event was that it would be an absolutely futile exercise.

“The file remained opened and, in 2002, we went again at technical and expert advice, which gave us a contrary view.

“We then went off and corroborated with even further expert advice, which said if there was something there, there is the possibility that you would find it.”

Local garda sources yesterday stressed that information from the woman on the burial was “a bit sketchy”.

A garda spokesman said any new evidence from the dig would be given to the DPP.

Last night it emerged that an inquest into the death of the baby girl in Dún Laoghaire is to be reopened.